In the wake of
Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans authorities announced that only police would be
allowed to possess firearms and proceeded to seize lawfully-possessed firearms
from citizens at gunpoint. Suit was filed alleging that the confiscations
violated the right to keep and bear arms under the Federal and Louisiana
constitutions, deprived citizens of liberty and property without due process,
violated equal protection, and constituted unlawful searches and seizures. The
U.S. district court enjoined the mayor and police superintendent from making
further seizures and ordered return of the confiscated firearms.2
This Article describes the claims and proceedings in the case.

Images of flooding,
death, looting, and devastation flashed across television screens after Katrina
hit. Two news clips are of particular interest here. One featured Police
Superintendent Eddie Compass announcing on September 8, 2005: “No one will be
able to be armed. Guns will be taken. Only law enforcement will be allowed to
have guns.” The other was the footage of Patricia Konie, a 58-year old petite
woman at her home with an old revolver for protection. Several burley policemen
slammed her to the ground, fracturing her shoulder, and took her into custody.3

The Complaint and Consent Order
Enjoining Confiscations

The National Rifle
Association, Second Amendment Foundation, and an individual plaintiff filed a
complaint and a motion for preliminary injunction against the gun seizures in
the U.S. district court, which due to the flooding had moved to Baton Rouge.
The complaint alleged that, in the devastation and breakdown of law and order
that followed Katrina, law-abiding citizens were left on their own without
police protection to protect their families, persons, and property from looters,
rapists, and criminals of various types. Police officers who stayed on the job
to do their duty were overwhelmed. Defendants responded to this crisis in part
by ordering that the law-abiding citizens be disarmed, leaving them at the mercy
of roving gangs, home invaders, and other criminals.4

During the same
period, Mayor Nagin ordered the New Orleans Police and other law enforcement
entities under his authority to evict persons from their homes and to confiscate
their firearms. Police went from house to house and confiscated numerous
firearms from citizens at gunpoint. While decreeing that ordinary citizens may
not possess firearms, Defendants followed a policy of allowing certain
businesses and wealthy persons to hire armed security guards.5

On September 23,
2005, Judge Jay C. Zainey entered a Consent Order in which the New Orleans
defendants “den[ied] that seizures of lawfully possessed firearms from law
abiding citizens has occurred” and further denied “that any such weapons are
presently in the possession of the City of New Orleans . . . .”6
Nonetheless, the order enjoined the defendants “from confiscating
lawfully-possessed firearms from citizens,” and ordered them “to return any and
all firearms which may have been confiscated from . . . all . . . persons who
lawfully possessed them, upon presentation of identification and execution of a
receipt therefor.”7

In addition to the
New Orleans defendants, the complaint named the sheriff of St. Tammy Parish and
John Doe deputies as defendants. Plaintiff Buell O. Teel was in his boat on
Lake Pontchartrain in St. Tammany Parish working under contract to find an open
path to the Industrial Canal in New Orleans. Officers in a sheriff’s boat came
alongside with assault rifles pointing at him and demanded any firearms he might
have. He surrendered two encased hunting rifles which he kept for his
protection.8 Other
citizens in the parish also had firearms seized. The plaintiffs reached an
early settlement with the St. Tammany defendants with a return of the seized
firearms and the entry of a permanent injunction against further confiscations.9

Failure to Return Seized
Firearms

Plaintiffs filed a
motion to hold the New Orleans defendants in contempt for not implementing a
plan to return confiscated firearms, which was set on the court’s docket for
March 15, 2006. New Orleans Counsel Joseph DiRosa appeared before court began
and offered to allow plaintiffs’ counsel to inspect firearms being held by the
police and to enter into negotiations to establish a procedure for owners to
claim their firearms. Plaintiff’s counsel thereupon continued the motion
pending negotiations. This author’s contemporaneous notes reflect:

We went to the police facility where the guns are
stored in a double wide trailer and a moving truck. Some are evidence guns (for
criminal cases) but most are property guns (confiscated from citizens not
accused of any crime). In both the trailer and the truck, there are piles of
rifles and shotguns stacked on the floor (mostly hunting type, some military
style), and large plastic buckets of handguns. The majority are rusted, some
unsalvageable, others in good condition. . . .

The guns in good condition were apparently those
seized from persons at their homes or in vehicles. Those in the worst condition
may have originated from flooded homes when police conducted house searches for
dead bodies and guns. . . .

The guns are tagged. Many tags have no names but
only an address, or only the address of the block. . . .

The figure of 1,100 guns at the premises was
given, including both evidence and property guns.

Thereafter the NRA
and SAF publicized the address and telephone number of the police facility so
that owners could retrieve their firearms. While a number of owners went to the
facility, most were turned away empty handed. Police requested original bills
of sale which flood victims would not have and otherwise told claimants that
they could not locate the firearms requested.

The Motion to Dismiss

Meanwhile, New
Orleans filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction and for failure to state a viable claim. The motion asserted that
“the states, and by extension their political subdivisions, are free to
proscribe the possession of firearms, not only because the Second Amendment does
not prohibit it but also pursuant to the emergency powers granted to the State
and municipality during a state of emergency.”10
Defendants argued that the claim under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments was
defective, and that “although plaintiffs also assert due-process,
equal-protection, and search-and-seizure claims arising under the U.S.
Constitution, none of these other claims stands without their Second Amendment
claims.”11 The
following summarizes plaintiffs’ response and then the court’s ruling.

Violation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:

The Second and Fourteenth
Amendments

Count One of the
Complaint alleges that the confiscations abridged and infringed on the right of
citizens to keep and bear arms, in violation of U.S. Const., Amends. II and XIV
and La. Const., Art. I, § 11. Federal subject matter jurisdiction arises under
the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.12
Moreover, violation of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments states a claim on
which relief may be granted.

The Second
Amendment, like other Bill of Rights guarantees, does not apply directly
to the States. However, neither the Fifth Circuit nor the Supreme Court has
decided whether the Second Amendment (like other Bill of Rights guarantees)
applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Contrary to
defendants’ claim that the right to keep and bear arms is not an individual
right,
United States v. Emerson
(5th Cir. 2001) rejected
the “collective rights” view of the Second Amendment and held:

We hold, consistent with [United States v.
Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)], that it protects the right of individuals,
including those not then actually a member of any militia or engaged in active
military service or training, to privately possess and bear their own firearms,
such as the pistol involved here, that are suitable as personal, individual
weapons . . . .13

The Supreme Court
stated in a trio of nineteenth century cases that the First, Second, and Fourth
Amendments apply only to Congress, and two of these stated that the Amendments
do not apply directly to the States.14
However, these cases did not consider whether these rights are incorporated
against the State through the Fourteenth Amendment. “[T]hese holdings all came
well before the Supreme Court began the process of incorporating certain
provisions of the first eight amendments into the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment,” and “they ultimately rest on a rationale equally
applicable to all those amendments . . . .”15

Senator Jacob
Howard, introducing the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, explained that its purpose
was to protect “personal rights” such as “the right to keep and bear arms.”16
The Freedmen’s Bureau Act, passed by over two-thirds of the same Congress which
proposed the Fourteenth Amendment, recognized the right to “full and equal
benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty, personal
security, and . . . estate, real and personal, including the constitutional
right to bear arms.”17
The Amendment protects from State infringement the “indefeasible right of
personal security, personal liberty and private property,”18
the very rights the Freedmen’s Bureau Act declared to include the right to bear
arms.

United States v.
Cruikshank (1876) involved alleged private criminal violation of First and
Second Amendment rights of black freedmen under the federal Enforcement Act, and
did not involve State action.19
Justice Bradley, sitting as Circuit Judge, stated of the Fourteenth Amendment:
“Grant that this prohibition now prevents the states from interfering with the
right to assemble,” but stated of that issue and of the “conspiracy to interfere
with certain citizens in their right to bear arms”: “In none of these counts is
there any averment that the state had, by its laws interfered with any of the
rights referred to . . . .”20

Since no State
action was involved, the Supreme Court never considered in Cruikshank
whether the Fourteenth Amendment protected First and Second Amendment freedoms.
It noted that the rights “peaceably to assemble” and “of bearing arms for a
lawful purpose” long antedated the Constitution, but that the First and Second
Amendments protected those rights from “encroachment” or from “be[ing] infringed
by Congress,” not by private individuals.21
For protection of these and other rights from private violence, citizens must
rely on the States. Cruikshank did not refer to encroachment or
infringement by the States, as that was not involved in the case.

Cruikshank’s
only mention of the Fourteenth Amendment was the rejection of a due process
right against false imprisonment and murder by private citizens, for the
Amendment’s due process clause “adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as
against another. It simply furnishes an additional guaranty against any
encroachment by the State upon the fundamental rights which belong to every
citizen as a member of society.”22

Presser v.
Illinois (1886) held that requiring a permit for an armed march in a city
did not violate the rights to associate or to bear arms, and that in any event
the First and Second Amendments did not apply to the States.23Presser did not consider whether the Fourteenth Amendment protects those
rights by incorporating them.

Miller v. Texas
(1894) rejected direct application of the Second and Fourth Amendments to the
States, but refused to consider whether those Amendments were incorporated into
the Fourteenth Amendment:

And if the fourteenth amendment limited the power
of the states as to such rights, as pertaining to citizens of the United States,
we think it was fatal to this claim that it was not set up in the trial court. .
. . A privilege or immunity under the constitution of the United States cannot
be set up here . . . when suggested for the first time in a petition for
rehearing after judgment.24

Had the issue of
incorporation been decided previously, the Court would have so stated, rather
than refusing to consider it because it had not been raised below.
Cruikshank decided only that Bill of Rights guarantees do not provide
protection from private violation, and Presser and Miller v. Texas
decided only that such guarantees do not apply directly to the States, but did
not consider whether the Fourteenth Amendment protects the rights set forth in
these guarantees.

The Supreme Court
has never questioned the fundamental character of the substantive guarantees of
the Bill of Rights. Robertson v. Baldwin (1897) stated of “the
freedom of speech and of the press” and “the right of the people to keep and
bear arms” that “the law is perfectly well settled that the first ten Amendments
to the constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, were not intended to
lay down any novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain
guaranties and immunities which we inherited from our English ancestors . . . .”25
More recently, United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990) explained:

“The people” seems to have been a
term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. . . . The Second
Amendment protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” . . . . See
also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1, (“Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . .
the right of the people peaceably to assemble”) . . . . While this textual
exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that “the people” protected by
the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, . . . refers to a
class of persons who are part of a national community . . . .26

As an individual
liberty explicitly guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, the right to arms is
fundamental.27 No
constitutional right is “less ‘fundamental’ than” others, and “we know of no
principled basis on which to create a hierarchy of constitutional values . . .
.”28

Planned
Parenthood of Southeastern Penn. v. Casey (1992) noted that “all fundamental
rights comprised within the term liberty are protected by the Federal
Constitution from invasion by the States.”29The
Court added:

Neither the Bill of Rights nor the specific
practices of States at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment
marks the outer limits of the substantive sphere of liberty which the Fourteenth
Amendment protects. . . . As the second Justice Harlan recognized:

“[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by
the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the
specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution . . . [such as] the
freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms . . . .
It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all
substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints . . . .”30

Based on the above
Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court precedents, plaintiffs argued that Count One
states a claim on which relief may be granted. It is likely that these courts,
if faced squarely with the issue, would decide that the Second Amendment right
to keep and bear arms is protected from State infringement through incorporation
in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Violation of the Right to Keep
and Bear Arms: The Louisiana Guarantee

In addition to the
above, Article I, § 11, of the Louisiana Constitution provides: “The right of
each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision
shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons
concealed on the person.” The court has supplemental jurisdiction over this
state law claim in Count One.31

Defendants had no
authority to abridge the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.
“The Constitutions of the United States and Louisiana give us the right to keep
and bear arms. It follows, logically, that to keep and bear arms gives us the
right to use the arms for the intended purpose for which they were
manufactured.”32

At the
Constitutional Convention of 1973, where the current version of Art. I, § 11,
was framed, Delegate John L. Avant, sponsor of the guarantee, noted its purpose
to protect “the right to carry a firearm in your automobile, in your boat, or
keep one in your place of business.”33
Criminals are deterred knowing “that that store owner, or that homeowner, or
that citizen, is in all probability armed and prepared to defend himself.”
Id.34 Similarly,
Delegate Hayes noted the folly of “disarming everybody so the criminals could
just have a heyday knowing that you have nothing to protect yourself with.”
Id. at 1216. That is what occurred here as a result of the policies of
Defendants, who purported to suspend constitutional rights.35

The state may
regulate “the carrying of weapons concealed on the person,” Art. I, § 11, or
require the registration of certain narrowly-defined arms.36
However, a total ban on and confiscation of all firearms in all places,
including the home, is plainly unconstitutional.

Defendants argued
that “the states, and by extension their political subdivisions, are free to
proscribe the possession of firearms” under their emergency powers. No such
emergency powers exist or were invoked here. Designated officials may only
“Suspend or limit the sale, dispensing, or transportation of . . . firearms,”37
not prohibit possession thereof. Moreover, “Nothing in this Chapter shall be
interpreted to diminish the rights guaranteed to all persons under the
Declaration of Rights of the Louisiana Constitution or the Bill of Rights of the
United States Constitution.”38

The governor’s
declaration of an emergency may authorize chief law enforcement officers to
promulgate orders, to be effective for only five days, “Regulating and
controlling the possession, storage, display, sale, transport and use of
firearms . . . .”39
That does not authorize a prohibition on firearms possession,40
and may not be interpreted to violate constitutional guarantees.

To clarify, H.B. 760
was signed into law on June 8, 2006, declaring that the above emergency powers
shall not “authorize the seizure or confiscation of any firearm . . . from any
individual who is lawfully carrying or possessing the firearm . . . .”41
An exception exists for a peace officer to “disarm an individual if the officer
reasonably believes it is immediately necessary for the protection of the
officer or another individual.” The officer must “return the firearm to the
individual before discharging that individual unless the officer arrests that
individual for engaging in criminal activity, or seizes the firearm as evidence
pursuant to an investigation for the commission of a crime.”42

In sum, in addition
to stating a federal claim under U.S. Const., Amends. II and XIV, Count One
states a claim on which relief may be granted under Article I, § 11, of the
Louisiana Constitution over which the court has supplemental jurisdiction.

Deprivation of Liberty and
Property Without Due Process

The Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no State shall deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Count Two
alleges that the firearms confiscated by Defendants constituted private property
which was lawfully possessed by Plaintiffs pursuant to State and Federal law.
Moreover, the manner in which Plaintiffs kept, bore, and possessed such property
constituted liberty interests recognized by State and Federal law.

The liberty and
property interests at issue here are recognized by the State constitutional
right to keep and bear arms;43
the statute providing for a permit which “shall grant authority to a citizen to
carry a concealed handgun on his person” and which may be revoked only according
to specified procedures;44
State law allowing the possession and open carrying of firearms; and the
prohibition on local regulation “more restrictive than state law” of firearms
possession and transportation.45
State law also generally respects personal freedom and private property.46

Moreover, federal
law provides that “notwithstanding . . . any rule or regulation of a State or
any political subdivision thereof,” any person in lawful possession thereof
“shall be entitled to transport a firearm for any lawful purpose from any place
where he may lawfully possess and carry such firearm to any other place where he
may lawfully possess and carry such firearm . . . .”47

“State-created
liberty and property interests, including the right to bear arms for defense and
security, are protected by the Due Process Clause.”48
Like liberty interests, property interests recognized by State law are also
protected by the due process clause.49
“[M]unicipalities or supervisors may face liability under section 1983 where
they breach duties imposed by state or local law.”50

Accordingly, by
confiscating firearms from their lawful possessors in their homes, businesses,
automobiles, boats, and otherwise, Defendants deprived them of liberty and
property without due process of law. Count Two adequately alleges federal
jurisdiction and states a valid claim.

Denial of Equal Protection of
the Laws

The Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no State shall deny to
any person the equal protection of the laws. Count Three alleges that at the
same time that Defendants instituted and executed their policy of confiscating
firearms from Plaintiffs and other law-abiding citizens and thereby prevented
them from protecting their more-modest homes, Defendants allowed selected
wealthy persons to keep their firearms and/or to retain armed private security
personnel to protect their more expensive homes and properties. One’s ability
to exercise one’s rights and to protect life and property depended on whether
one had the economic means to retain armed private security personnel.

Discrimination based
on wealth or type of housing as to who may possess firearms violates equal
protection. Hetherton v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. (3rd Cir. 1981)
invalidated a requirement that two freeholders must identify a firearm
purchaser, because a state cannot “arbitrarily establish categories of persons
who can or cannot buy the weapons.”51Hetherton remarks:

To limit the options of prospective purchasers
for guns to a requirement that only people who own real estate can identify the
purchasers is not more constitutionally permissible than a requirement that only
Catholics or Blacks or Indians can identify purchasers of handguns.52

A less wealthy
person who cannot afford a private security service is not more likely to misuse
a firearm than is a more wealthy person or a private security guard such person
may retain.53Accordingly,
the court has jurisdiction over Count Three, which states a valid claim on which
relief may be granted.

The Right to Be Secure from
Unreasonable
Searches and Seizures

The Fourth Amendment
to the United States Constitution, which applies to the States through the
Fourteenth Amendment, provides in part that “the right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .” Count Four alleges that
Defendants issued or executed orders that persons (including Plaintiffs) be
accosted at gunpoint by law enforcement officers and that their persons, homes,
boats, and other properties be searched and temporarily seized, and that their
firearms be seized and kept for an indefinite period of time. Plaintiffs
committed no unlawful acts, did not threaten any law enforcement officers, or
engage in any other activity that would justify such searches and seizures.54
Defendants thus violated the right of Plaintiffs and other citizens to be secure
in their persons and houses against unreasonable searches and seizures.55

The mere presence of
a firearm does not justify a search of or seizure from its apparent lawful
possessor. “[O]wning a gun is usually licit and blameless conduct. Roughly 50
percent of American homes contain at least one firearm of some sort . . . .”56
“Common sense tells us that millions of Americans possess these items [firearms]
with perfect innocence.”57

“[P]olice officers
may stop and briefly detain an individual for investigative purposes if they
have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.”58
Apparent lawful possession of a firearm gives rise to no such reasonable
suspicion.

“An officer seizes a
person when he, ‘by means of physical force or show of authority, has in
some way restrained the liberty of a citizen.’”59
Defendants, by their orders or their actions, violated the security of the
persons and property of Plaintiffs by restraining their liberty and seizing
their firearms.

Defendants violated
the Fourth Amendment by searching the persons, homes, businesses, and motor
vehicles of Plaintiffs and seizing their firearms. Count Four adequately states
federal jurisdiction and a cause of action.

The District Court Upholds
Jurisdiction and Cause of Action

Argument on the
motion to dismiss was held on August 16, 2006, before Judge Carl J. Barbier.
The court found both that federal jurisdiction existed and that the complaint
stated a valid cause of action, and thus denied the motion to dismiss. Although
no memorandum opinion was issued, the judge concisely made clear his reasoning
from the bench.

On the
jurisdictional issue, the judge asked: “How can there not be federal subject
matter jurisdiction when the plaintiffs are alleging claims under the Second
Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment?”60
Regarding the argument that all of the claims failed if the Second Amendment
claim was defective, he asked “even if you are right, it doesn’t give the state
or the city the power enter someone's home with no probable cause, no
cause whatsoever, and start seizing weapons does it?”61
In response to the defense argument that proof was lacking that New Orleans
police (instead of some outside police force) confiscated firearms, the
following exchange took place:

The Court: There were many groups down here at
the time, but it was my understanding that they were operating under the mayor’s
emergency declaration and the orders of the mayor and/or the chief of police in
this respect weren’t they?

Mr. DiRosa: I guess we were probably, yes, the
center of authority at that time . . . .62

Regarding the Second
Amendment incorporation issue, Judge Barbier made the following comments from
the bench:

The Court: There’s not a controlling case that
says it doesn’t apply either through the Fourteenth Amendment. The old cases
you cited, the Cruikshank case and all didn’t consider that issue, right?

Mr. DiRosa: No.

The Court: There is a question of whether the
Second Amendment applied directly to the states, and obviously, it doesn’t. . .
. So the issue is -- which does seem to be at least Supreme Court level an open
question as to whether the Second Amendment is incorporated in the
Fourteenth Amendment.
. . . Emerson says that the rights that flow under the Second
Amendment are individual rights . . . .
That being the case, it seems at least to me it’s arguable that the
Supreme Court now might -- this Supreme Court today -- if they agree with the
Fifth Circuit on that, they might well find it used the same logic that
incorporates the rest of the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment.63

The above comments
were perceptive, in that it is a common error to assume that the Supreme Court
has ruled against incorporation of the Secondment Amendment, when actually it
has only ruled that the Second Amendment (like the First and Fourth) do not
apply directly to the States. As the judge noted above, if the Supreme Court
agrees with Emerson’s individual rights interpretation, the Second
Amendment may be incorporated under the same standards as other Bill of Rights
provisions. Accordingly, the court denied the motion to dismiss in its
entirety.

Litigation Continues

Since the above
ruling, plaintiffs have sought to pursue discovery from defendants. Failure of
defendants to respond led to the filing of a motion to compel and to hold
defendants in contempt. The district court granted the motion, censuring
defense counsel and ordering him to pay attorney’s fees to plaintiffs.64

In April 2007,
plaintiffs were given access to the police property facility to begin an
inventory of the firearms and to record such information about the owners as is
on the tags affixed thereon. Plaintiffs’ objectives include giving notice to
the owners that their firearms are in the possession of the New Orleans police –
to date New Orleans has not done so – and to obtain information about the
circumstances of the seizures.

A trial date of
February 19, 2008, has been set. Plaintiffs’ litigation goals remain the same
as at the beginning of the case – the return of seized firearms to their
rightful owners and a permanent injunction against any future unlawful
confiscations. The case is constitutionally significant based on the district
court’s holding that an action alleging infringement on the right to keep and
bear arms by local authorities under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments states
a valid federal claim.

1Stephen
P. Halbrook (with co-counsel Daniel Holliday) represents the plaintiffs
in NRA v. Nagin. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from
Florida State University and J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.
In addition to arguing Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898
(1997), and other cases in the Supreme Court, he is author of
Firearms Law Deskbook
(2007); Freedmen, the Fourteenth
Amendment, & the Right to Bear Arms (1998);That Every Man Be Armed
(1984, 2000); A Right to Bear Arms
(1989); TheSwiss and the Nazis (2006); TargetSwitzerland (in five
languages) (1998). See also www.stephenhalbrook.com.

23Presser
v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252,
265-68 (1886). See id. at 265 (“the amendment is a limitation
upon the power of Congress and the National government, and not upon
that of the States.”).

24Miller
v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535, 538-39
(1894).

25Robertson
v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281-82 (1897).

26United
States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265 (1990).

27“The
key to discovering whether [a right] is ‘fundamental’” is whether it is
“explicitly or implicitly guaranteed by the Constitution.” San
Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 33
(1973).

28Valley
Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church &
State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 484
(1982).

33VII Records of the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1973: Convention
Transcripts, 45th day at 1211.

34Delegate
Tapper supported the guarantee to preclude restrictions on “the
possession of firearms and weapons for the defense of the innocent
people so that a man cannot have a weapon in his business place to
protect himself, so that you cannot have a weapon in your home to
protect yourself . . . .” Id. at 1213.

35“[I]t
is reasonable . . . to regulate the possession of firearms for a limited
period of time by citizens who have committed certain specified serious
felonies.” State v. Amos, 343 So.2d 166, 168 (La. 1977). That
is not the case regarding law-abiding citizens. See State v.
Williams, 735 So.2d 62, 70 (La. App. 5 Cir. 1999) (denying that
narcotics trafficker “has the equal right to possess or bear arms as
does the law-abiding citizen.”) (emphasis added).

60NRA
v. Nagin, Transcript of
hearing on motion to dismiss 4-5 (Aug. 16, 2006). The transcript is
available at www.stephenhalbrook.com.

61Id.
at 5.

62Id.
at 14.

63Id.
at 14-15.

64NRA
v. Nagin, Order granting in
part and denying in part Plaintiff’s Motion to Hold Defendants C. Ray
Nagin & Warren Riley in Contempt (Feb. 12, 2007). The court ruled:

Here,
defense counsel failed to timely answer discovery requests or provide
initial disclosures. Defense counsel also ignored the repeated requests
of Plaintiffs’ counsel to discuss the matter. . . . Defense counsel has
caused time and money to be wasted by Plaintiffs’ counsel and further
admits that he has “no good reason” to explain his behavior. This type
of conduct is wholly unprofessional and shall not be condoned.